Civics and HealthAllen, William H. (WIlliam Harvey)
Science
Civics and Health
Allen, William H. (WIlliam Harvey)
Hygiene; Public health
We believe a vast number of things that "ain't so" about the health of
country children as compared with city children, of private-school
children as compared with public-school children. Where do we find more
degenerate men, physically and morally, than in so-called "American
settlements," where, for generations, children have had all outdoors to
play in, except when in homes and schoolhouses that are seldom cleansed
and seldom ventilated? Open mouths and closed minds clog the "little
red schoolhouse"; there headaches do not suggest eye strain; there
deafness and running ears are frankly attributed to scarlet fever which
everybody must have with all the other "catching" diseases, the earlier
the better; there colds begin in December and run until March, to the
serious injury of attendance and promotion records; there bone
tuberculosis is called "knee trouble" or "spine trouble in the family";
there boys like my little friend Fred count the bottles of cod-liver
oil they take to cure adenoids that could be removed in two minutes.
The index to community life and community living conditions should be
read in the country, not only for the country's sake, but also for the
sake of the city whose milk and water, poisoned in the country, cause
thousands of deaths annually, besides annual sick bills exceeding many
times over the Russell Sage and Carnegie Foundations, which we rightly
call munificent. Reading the index of private schools and colleges is
important for their children and youth, but still more important for
the community upon which unbridled passion, inability to work or to
spend properly, inconsequential thinking, mediaeval ideals of caste,
etc., can inflict greater injuries than can typhoid fever or cholera.
The physical record of each child should be kept from date of entrance
to date of leaving school, showing condition at successive
examinations, absence because of illness, etc.
3. _Thorough physical examination of children when leaving school, or
when passing compulsory school age, as a condition to "working papers"
and to "coming out."_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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